Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end?
Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more.
So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men ;
And death once dead, there's no more dying then.
IMMODERATE PASSION.
My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease;
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
Th' uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve ;
Desire is death, why physic did accept.
Past cure I am, now reason is past cure ;
And frantic mad with evermore unrest,
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
At random from the truth vainly express'd.
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
LOVE'S POWERFUL SUBTLETY.
O me what eyes hath love put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true sight!
Or if they have, where is my judgment fled,
That censures falsely what they see aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote,
Love's eye is not so true as all men's. No.
How can it? O how can love's eye be true,
That is so vex'd with watching and with tears?
No marvel then, tho' I mistake my view;
The sun itself sees not, till heaven clears.
O cunning love with tears thou keep'st me blind,
Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.
Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not?
When I against myself with thee partake?
Do I not think on thee, when I forgot
All of myself, all tyrant for thy sake?
Who hatest thou, that I do call my friend?
On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon ?
Nay, if thou low'rst on me, do I not spend
Revenge upon myself with present moan?
What merit do I in myself respect,
That is so proud thy service to despise ;
When all my best doth worship thy defect,
Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?
But love, hate on for now I know thy mind,
Those that can see, thou lov'st, and I am blind.
O! from what power hast thou this powerful might,
With insufficiency my heart to sway;
To make thee give the lie to my true sight,
And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?
Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,
That in the very refuse of thy deeds,
There is such strength and warrantise of skill,
That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds ?
Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,
The more I hear and see just cause of hate?
O tho' I love what others do abhor,
With others thou should'st not abhor my state.
If thy unworthiness rais'd love in me,
More worthy I to be belov'd of thee.
So oft have I invok'd thee for my muse,
And found such fair assistance in my verse,
As every alien pen hath got my use,
And under thee their poesy disperse.
Thine eyes that taught the dumb on high to sing,
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,
Have added feathers to the learned's wing,
And given grace a double majesty :
Yet be most proud of that which I compile,
Whose influence is thine, and born of thee;
In other works thou dost but mend the style;
And arts with thy sweet graces graced be:
But thou art all my art, and dost advance,
As high as learning, my rude ignorance.
Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,
My verse alone had all thy gentle grace;
But now my gracious numbers are decay'd,
And my sick muse doth give another place.
I grant, sweet love thy lovely argument
Deserves the travail of a worthier pen;
Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent,
He robs thee of, and pays it thee again;
He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word
From thy behaviour. Beauty_doth he give,
And found it in thy cheek. He can afford
No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live.
Then thank him not for that which he doth say,
Since what he owes to thee, thyself dost pay.
That time of year thou may'st in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
Upon those boughs, which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd quires, 3 where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilights of such day,
As after sun-set fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals all up in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum'd by that which it was nourish'd by.
'Tis thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.
Thy glass will show how thy beauties wear;
Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;
The vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,
And of this book this learning may'st thou taste.
The wrinkles, which thy glass will show,
Of mouthed graves will give thee memory:
Thou by the dial's shady stealth may'st know
Time's peevish progress to eternity.
Look what thy memory cannot contain,
[3] This image was probably suggested to Shakspeare by our desolate monasteries. The resemblance between the vaulting of a Gothic isle, and an avenue of trees, whose upper branches meet and form an arch over head, is too striking not to be acknowledged. When the roof of one is shattered, and the boughs of the other leafless, the comparison becomes yet more solemn and picturesque. STEEVENS.
Commit to these waste blacks and thou shalt find
Those children nurs'd, deliver'd from thy brain,
To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.
These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,
Shall profit thee, and much enrich thy book.
A MONUMENT TO FAME.
Not mine own fears, nor the prophetick soul
Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come,
Can yet the lease of my true love control,
Suppos'd as forfeit to a confin'd doom.
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur'd,
And the sad augurs mock their own presage :
Incertainties now crown themselves assur'd,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Now with the drops of this most balmy time,
My love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes ;
Since spite of him I'll live in this poor rhyme,
While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes.
And thou in this shalt find thy monument,
When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent. What's in the brain, that ink may character, Which hath not figur'd to thee my true spirit? What's now to speak, what now to register, That may express my love, or thy dear merit? Nothing, sweet love! but yet like prayers divine, I must each day say o'er the very same; Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine, E'en as when first I hallow'd thy fair name. So that eternal love, in love's fresh case, Weighs not the dust and injuries of age, Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place, But makes antiquity for aye his page :
Finding the first conceit of love there bred,
Where time and outward form would show it dead.
Love is too young to know what conscience is,
Yet who knows nct conscience is born of love?
Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,
Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove.
For thou betraying me, I do betray
My nobler part to my gross body's treason;
My soul doth tell my body that he may
Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason;
But rising at thy name doth point out thee
As his triumphant prize : proud of this pride,
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.
No want of conscience, hold it, that I call
Her love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.
In loving thee, thou know'st I am forsworn,
But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing;
In act thy bed-vow broke, and new faith torn,
In vowing new hate after new love bearing.
But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee,
When I break twenty? I am perjur'd most ;
For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee;
And all my honest faith in thee is lost.
For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness;
Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy;
And to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness;
Or made them swear against the thing they see.
For I have sworn thee fair: more perjur'd I,
To swear against the truth so foul a lie.
THE TALE OF CEPHALUS AND PROCRIS.
Beneath Hymettus' hill, well cloth'd with flowers,
A holy well her soft springs gently pours:
Where stands a copse,in which the wood-nymphs shrove,
(No wood) it rather seems a slender grove.
The humble shrubs and bushes hide the grass;
Here laurel, rosemary, here myrtle was:
Here grew thick box, and tam'risk that excels,
And made a mere confusion of sweet smells.
The triffoly, the pine; and on this heath
Stands many a plant that feels cold Zephyr's breath.
Here the young Cephalus, tir'd in the chace,
Us'd his repose and rest alone t' embrace ;
And where he sat, those words he would repeat,
"Come, air, sweet air, come cool my mighty heat!
Come, gentle air, I never will forsake thee,
I'll hug thee thus, and in my bosom take thee."
Some double duteous tell-tale hapt to hear this,
And to his jealous wife doth straightway bear this,
Which Procris' hearing, and withal the name
Of air, sweet air, which he did oft proclaim,
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